A flower teaser

The Day of The Allium is coming. Be patient. Since May 18 I have clicked the camera shutter button 1579 times not counting today, and in 237 of them, an Allium was the subject of interest. Or the putative subject of interest, some of them are not correctly exposed so it's a bit tough to tell. They turn out to be tough little buggers to photo, what with the tall stalk waving in the slightest breeze, and my focus changing by the millimetre.

The idea is to show it from bud to blossom to fading. No, I'm not going to make you scroll through 237. Maybe only 23. Depends. They are in high blossom now, so you can guess the timing. Soon, I suspect. That one might be a long one with lots of photos. I can promise to show you Allium butt, and I'm pretty sure I can demonstrate the concept of bokeh. Stay tuned.

The lilies are just beginning to bud, and I can't wait. Love the lilies, and we've worked so hard to keep them safe from the lily beetles. The peonies are showing promise, and I hope to get both hairy ant butt shots and nice blossom shots of them. One of the tree peonies Linda planted last fall has a bud on it, much to her astonishment.

Here's some of the photos in the works just now. One of the lilies just starting to bud out.

A Clematis exploring the top of the lattice. This is the one we transplanted from the back fence when we did the patio. We didn't expect it to live, but thought we'd give it the chance. It was in shock the first year but has taken off, as has it's cousin that was beside, though it's a bit slower. From a technical perspective, the clematis is not the point of interest here. Look at how the fence top is out of focus, comes into focus under the clematis, and then goes out of focus. I controlled how that looked. It wasn't an accident, and turned out exactly as I had hoped.

Such a beautiful yellow. Linda said what it was, but I forget.

Such a beautiful purple. Linda said what is was, but I forget.

Some random something or others. I call them the sperm helmet flowers, after the streamlined helmets some triathletes wear. (Julie asking does this make me look like a dork?) Linda said what they were but I forget.

Downtown shot from way south of 22X. I wasn't even sure that it would show up in the haze. Even the dehaze tool didn't help much, and pushing the various controls to increase clarity just made the colours weird. B&W turned out to give it an old timey look, and I pictured people finding this photo a long time from now, dating it from the buildings, and marvelling that the Calgary Tower was still standing, and the buildings were so short, and there was still farmland within site of the skyline. Or them marvelling at the last great spasms of the oil and gas industry before it collapsed in the wake of the clean energy revolution, and everybody abandoned Calgary, and the buildings slowly collapsed. All of these are great ideas for the start of a science fiction novel, or something else. See? the ideas are the easy part. Just from this, I could generate a dozen more ideas. Tell you what, write the book and you can split the royalties with me. I'll trust you.